


Reason Enough to Hate the 14th Century

by Mitsuhachi



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Freezing, Gen, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, UST, snake form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5254586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsuhachi/pseuds/Mitsuhachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley finds himself in a...somewhat awkward predicament and turns to his opposite number for help. This doesn't go as well as either of them hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reason Enough to Hate the 14th Century

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this supremely lovely piece of music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D84cuIPx5aQ

He was walking in the cloister when he first noticed. The light had been failing for the day in the scriptorum, despite the clever tall windows, and he'd thought he'd stretch his legs for a little while before lighting any candles. The monks were ringing vespers and the garden was quiet beneath its blanket of snow. Even as he watched, lazy little flakes were drifting to the ground. It should have been peaceful.

It was not.

"I know you're there, you old snake" he said out loud, annoyance openly warring with amusement. It'd been a long time, after all. "You might as well come out."

For one minute, two, there was no response. Aziraphale crossed his arms, unimpressed, and waited. Finally there was a faint rustling from a holly bush underneath the pear tree, something small moving only a tiny bit. That was...unexpected. He padded forward, sandals crunching in the fresh frost, and leaned down to look.

It was Crowley, alright, but not as Aziraphale had gotten used to seeing him. The demon was curled under the meager protection of the bush in his original form, scales rimed with cold and body stiff, and Aziraphale gasped to see it. "What on Earth are you doing like that?" he asked, hurrying to offer Crowley his hand.

The snake moved towards the offered warmth of even chilled human skin with an animal immediacy, but the movements were jerky and uncoordinated in a way that was quite unlike the lithe sway Aziraphale remembered from another Garden. Crowley's scales were absolutely freezing as they smoothed over his wrist and shamelessly up into the protection of Aziraphale's sleeve. Aziraphale looked down at the wriggling lump in his cassock and made an exasperated face even though he knew the demon couldn't see. Crowley had his tail wrapped around Aziraphale's upper arm and his head pressed seeking blindly against the heat of Aziraphale's chest, and it tickled in a way that rather didn't bear thinking too much about.

Cradling the cold little body close to his, Aziraphale turned his steps homeward.

***

It took some wrestling, but eventually he managed to pry Crowley out of his robe long enough to actually kindle a fire in the cell's little hearth. Aziraphale's room was small enough that it warmed quickly, though the adjoining one was empty and drew away some of the heat. Gingerly he set Crowley down near the hearthstone, wrapped in old soft wool. It was a relief to watch the way he began to stretch out, luxuriating in the flame.

"Now then," he started, settling himself down beside the demon. "What say you explain to me what exactly you thought you were doing, besides freezing to death in my abbey?"

Crowley curled over and rolled so that the delicious heat fell on the other side of his coils. "I, uh. Got myself Banished. A bit." he admitted finally, looking strikingly embarrassed for a being without human expressions. "You've got a Deacon down south with actual holiness, and apparently I was to "abandon my seductive illusion and reveal my true hellish form, and torment his priests no more." Aziraphale puffed a startled snicker and tried to bury it in his hands, but Crowley just curled up tighter, sulking.

"I warned you about tempting the clergy, didn't I?" Aziraphale reminded, loyally trying to force himself not to smile. "What was that?"

"Its more _fun_ ," the snake hissed, burrowing down into the wool. "There's no challenge in starving peasants or petty warlords, and there's not a damn lot else in the way of choices, is there?"

"Well, look what your fun has got you now," Aziraphale pointed out archly. "You're lucky to still be up here, you know. He could have sent you back to Hell, instead of just throwing you out. And then traveling all this way up into the mountains, like that--reckless, _reckless_. You were in a bad way; what would you have done if I hadn't found you? You could have discorporated, very easily." Aziraphale noticed distantly that his hands were clenched into fists over his knees. They didn't seem to want to relax.

Crowley was quiet a long time; eventually Aziraphale made himself stand up on stiff creaking knees and prepare for bed. In the dark of his room, just as he was drifting off to sleep, he imagined he could hear a small voice whisper "I'm sorry."

***

In the morning he brought Crowley fresh bread, morning milk, and eggs, and watched as he devoured them ravenously. He shouldn't have been earthly enough to feel hunger the way an animal might, for all his usual enthusiasm for the endlessly new things humans came up with, but his spirit was still so dim, a bare ember compared to the demon's usual cheerful blaze. Aziraphale didn't know what else to do for him. When he left for the scriptorum, Crowley went also, curled in the collar of Aziraphale's robe.

***

Aziraphale was helping taste the new batch of wine the brothers had made. The monks had been puzzled, a bit, that he'd apparently taken on a new rather unusual pet, but they tended to not bother much about eccentric but friendly Brother Fell and in any case had quickly gotten used to seeing it riding about with him wherever he went. They watched the snake weave and slither through Fell's arms as the laughing monk tried to keep him from stealing sips; the creature seemed determined to dunk its whole head in the little earthenware cup. He'd saved the silly thing, right enough, and it seemed to make him so happy. Probably it couldn't do any harm.

***

"Welcome back," Aziraphale said dryly. Crowley had spent the better part of three days hiding in the other empty room of the suite. Aziraphale heard him through the thin door, grumbling about the lack of heat and being bored and being hungry, petulantly cursing cold stone and winter and Aziraphale too when he'd tried to go in.

"Thank you kindly," Crowley purred, a rich low smug noise his snake body oughtn't be able to produce. He curled possessively around Aziraphale's bare ankle and he was softer than silk, smooth and beautifully lustrous, without a hint of the ragged frost-burns he'd worn before and long now as both Aziraphale's arm's outstretched. He coiled the long muscle of his heavy body around Aziraphale's leg on his way up to drape across the back of Aziraphale's chair, and Aziraphale swore he could feel every individual scale dragging across the skin. "Should I be careful of that?" he asked, flicking a long thin tongue towards the vellum on the desk. His yellow eyes seemed to glow in the candlelight. "Not scripture, is it?"

Aziraphale coughed and made himself look down. "Ah--um. No, no, don't worry. It's, ah, a medicinal text--see here where they've blocked out space for illustration?" Crowley's head rested heavy on his shoulder. "I've rather got to get on with it, I'm afraid."

"Go on, I'm happy enough just watching," the snake crooned like something halfway between a leer and a conspiratorial joke. Aziraphale tried to ignore the cool weight of him leaning across his shoulders and bent his head again to write.

***

Spring was lush in the mountains, everything exploding into bloom all at once as though trying to make people forget that winter barrenness had ever existed by dint of sheer beauty. Aziraphale strolled through the wildflowers that surrounded the abbey and let himself just enjoy the sunshine for a few minutes. Crowley was...somewhere about, anyway. Certainly too large now to ride everywhere on Aziraphale's shoulders. He tried not to think regretfully of a tender bundle resting delicate on his collarbones. Crowley seemed stronger of spirit again, and Aziraphale determined to be glad.

Across the clearing, a pair of young monks had stretched out a blanket on the new grass. He smiled at them reflexively, but as he walked closer it became a frown of puzzlement as he saw what was stretched out between them, draped high across the lap of one and slithering up the chest of the other. Even as he watched, young Felipe leaned close to Ignacio and whispered something that made the other youth blush. Aziraphale clenched his jaw until it ached with a sudden incandescent fury. They'd taken _vows._

The boys startled badly and sprang apart when they saw him striding towards them. "I think," Aziraphale gritted out with a poor attempt at calm, "that you boys had better be getting inside. Right. Now." They scrambled--well they weren't stupid, he had to give them that--and left Crowley in sole possession of the blanket, basking and smug. "How dare you? Here, after everything?" Hot tears of rage pricked at his eyes and he blinked them away.  
Crowley stretched out in the sunshine, deliberately provoking, and hissed "Hello--did you forget who you were talking to? Did you start thinking I was going to be some sort of pet for real? Retire, maybe, go to vespers like a good little monk and pray? It's been months, angel. How long did you think Below was going to let me get away with doing nothing worse than plotting new ways to get under your frock?"

"That's not how it was!" Aziraphale snapped. "Don't pretend it was some sort of, of--"

"Obscene and lisssssscentious disssplay?" Crowley offered. "All this time curled up against your ssssskin and none of the brothersss ever guesssssed."

"Get out! You should never have come here in the first blessed place! Just _get out_!" Aziraphale knew he was shouting and didn't care.

Crowley was coiled like a viper, head held high enough to meet Aziraphale eye to eye and swaying menacingly. "I'll go where I damn well please," he hissed right in the angel's face and struck. Quick as blinking he was coiled around Aziraphale's chest squeezing tight enough to bruise, pinning Aziraphale's hands against his sides, and then slithered up further, around his neck, constricting with an agonizing slowness. Aziraphale choked and he didn't need to breathe but the feel of his windpipe being forced closed was distinctly unpleasant.

"I should have killed you back under the bush," Aziraphale whispered bitterly with the last of the air in his burning lungs.

"I should introduce your vulnerable human form to my venom," Crowley countered, scraping his fangs almost tenderly against Aziraphale's cheek. "I should keep tightening my coils until your little ribs break and your heart turns into wet pulp. Neither of us are all that great at doing what we're supposed to, it turns out." As suddenly as he'd lunged at the angel, now he let go, letting Aziraphale drag in wretched coughing breaths. "You don't need to worry, I'll leave your precious monks alone. So long, angel."

Aziraphale watched him slither away through the wild grass until he passed out of sight, arms wrapped around himself against the sudden chill.


End file.
